Contextualize this album for me. Contextualize the noise.

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what does that mean

This guy used to kick ass. I don't care about technique and elegant solutions when something has those heartfelt arpeggios straight the Berlin School era. His first works sounded bad but there was inspiration - some kick-ass synth & sequencer ambient/electronica with so many ideas and great harmonies. Pure bliss... i loved him so much that i bought 3 or 4 copies of his double cd compilation that gathered his cdr and early works as a christmas present for my friends into electronica and/or techno.

So what the F is this horrible record? Do we still need that nasy annoying intelligent music??!
He vaporwave'd a bit his brain (lol what the hell is VAPORWAVE ?) probably! Those beautiful Schulze-like melodies disappeared from his compositions and now he's a softcore version of Autechre. Soft but equally annoying.

It's one of the worst records i heard in 2013 and probably in my whole life.

>>70522784
Where do the sounds come from?

>>70522769
But that's his least noisey album

>>70522769

Everyone has different tastes. Sometimes people like one thing, and others don't like it. And that's ok.

>>70522802
old midi and sampler presets from the 80s mostly

>>70522828
>>70522803
they don't get it.

The only song of his that I like is Ezra

>>70522792
kodak_ghost is just a grumpy old man

>>70522851
Zebra?

I am OP, and I liked these songs:
Boring Angel
Chrome Country
Still Life
He She
Gone

but I still don't really get how you just listen to this music.

>>70522907
It's introspective. The music fucks around with reality and the concept of itself existing.

It represents what was going on in the creators mind on varying levels of intangibility.

Good music for nightwalks and long programming sessions.

>Contextualize this album for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqFdW7vFMac

the short film that the album cover's from

>Contextualize the noise
MIDI presets, some software patches

>>70522907
>but I still don't really get how you just listen to this music.

what the fuck do you mean by this? JUST this music?

>>70522907
>but I still don't really get how you just listen to this music.
Lol what the fuck?

Your statement is the same as any normie who hears you play Swans or whatever and say "I don't really get how you just listen to this music".

OPN just uses weird, odd (odd as in even and odd numbers) time signatures and sometimes uses freeform song structures. It's just like any other music. It has chords and functional harmony and melodies and rhythms. It can be emotional or energizing or danceable or whatever.

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>>70523056
substantiate your claims that

>The music fucks around with reality
>and the concept of itself existing.
>It represents what was going on in the creators mind on varying levels of intangibility.

I interpret this album as OPN abstractly demonstrating positive, whimsical situations in his life (or the world as a whole). I don't think it has to be any more complex or deep than that.

It's just a joyous and mostly soothing setting, like a bubble bath with fluorescent lights.

>>70523131
I am that OP and I just wanted to get a response, but I think you're partly right but something is off here. R Plus 7 does at times have melodies and rhythm but often those disappear as fast as they appear... It feels like, and it's not a bad thing, that music like this is music that you would engage with to study the music. Like, I'd create an atmosphere to just hear this stuff. Like, I'd create an atmosphere to read.

Is it so heady? It just doesn't seem plainly enjoyable other than being nice sounding. These songs are just so abstract, and I mean it.

>>70522792
why is this bitch at the top of my compatibility list

>>70523235
>doesn't seem plainly enjoyable
to you, maybe. this album is a lot of fun to listen to for me, the raw sound design is crazy and it fun to try to figure out

>>70522828
he just wanted context but thanks for catching us all in your safety net

>>70523235
I think you're wrong, IMO. Some people have made that complaint about this album, but I think it's only because their brain hasn't quite clicked into the macro-song structures he's using.

It's not just an art gallery demonstrating different sound combinations. It's complete songwriting with tension and release. It's not even avant-garde like a Stockhausen song or something, though it's kind of in the vein of Stockhausen in that he's sometimes using untraditional rhythms.

Things do "jump around", but it's still in the context of the rhythm and meter of the song. He's just using unusual rhythms. Once you become accustomed to the rhythms, it sounds like any other music. Same with GoD and all his other work.

What I heard as disjointed musical sections when I first heard OPN now seem like natural pieces of whole progressions now that I've become more familiar with his work. I think he also likes to use polyrhythms that may trip you up and confuse where the beat and accents if you're not careful, almost in a jazzy kind of way, so that can take some getting used to.

Obviously it's still subjective, and some people may not be able to get into the groove of the songs.

Maybe listen to some of his older work to get into the right mindset. It's not as good, but still pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HRVoOAkPPE

>>70523321
I am splitting hairs, but I did say you wouldn't engage with this music other than to "figure out" the sounds. I don't see you putting this on for a nice walk, its not really danceable (don't hit me) and it has such a freeform that, in their whole, I personally think it is difficult to enjoy the songs - there are many songs with parts that I like, and few songs that I like entirely.

of course it's up to taste what you like.

>>70523362
I was going to make some sort of art appreciation/museum scanning analogy but then I read your post. This seems to be spot on with where I am coming from with OPN and mentions some developments I would think I'd encounter as I listen to more of his stuff. Thanks!

>>70523362
>>70523362

Also, idk if you'll like this kind of thing, but here's a recent track where he's doing his typical repetitive OPN style but in a more conventional 4/4 meter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUPbn57ad84

>>70523418
Yeah, it's all pretty subjective, especially when you're listening to any kind of experimental or somewhat freeform work. I'd liken it to Trout Mask Replica a bit. They're doing much more extreme polyrhythm stuff (where the timing isn't always perfect) than OPN is, but it still has recognizable rhythms and progressions once you're able to get used to it.

The first ~10 or so times I listened to OPN, I thought it was basically non-music, and a year later he's become one of my favorite artists.

>>70523362
thanks for this post, r+7 is one of my favorite albums and i like this perspective on how it works as an album

this thread gave me autism

>>70523528
wasn't that bad lol

>>70523235
I get what you mean. It can be a good album to listen to while browsing online. Also good for just thinking too.

>>70523506
You might find this interview interesting, too.

http://consequenceofsound.net/2013/09/oneohtrix-point-nevers-daniel-lopatin-explains-the-secret-to-recording-electronic-music/

>Do you think it’s harder to make abstract, non-referential music that’s detached from a personal narrative?

>I think it is my personal narrative, weirdly. I just tend to categorize things going on around me and things going on in my life in allegorical ways. I try to abstract things or stretch them out to understand them more, or freeze them to understand them more. You dim everything around a moment and you put a spotlight on it, and you give it some credit. You give it the respect it’s due as a moment. Sometimes I wish that I could do that all the time. You do it in moments in your life. You tell a story or you tell a joke three different ways in a row because you’re trying to absorb it and hold onto it and really understand what gives it so much life. It’s so cool and fun and lucky when you make music that you can weirdly freeze ideas and refine them.

>I don’t know if it’s important for other people or what, but I think if I’m honest with myself from thought to expression, I need to take into account everything. If I just made music in an ABA way, I don’t think that that would be honest with the way that I think or the way I hear things, or the way that I experience things.

>So if my purpose is to give a truthful account of the way that I perceive the world through music, then I have to be honest. I have to admit that it’s this incongruous thing with weird ratios and strange patterns.


As pretentious as it sounds, I think one really needs to accept and understand his unique perspective on music to enjoy his albums. But if you're able to, then they're pretty excellent.

>>70523141
Not really sure how I'm supposed to do that

It's introspective music. It's what you listen to when you stop living your day to day life manually and start looking outside the woodwork at what's pulling the strings. It's philosophical.

Snippets of noise that represent various things dance around, ripple in and out of existence and let you fill in the blanks about what that means. Maybe nothing, but the very premise of music being able to make you think that way is interesting.

>>70523597
Just because someone uses big words doesn't mean they're pretentious.

In fact that's monumentally retarded and any self-respecting artist wouldn't give two farts in a dead hooker's cornhole if an internet blogger calls their music "pretentious"

>>70523597
interesting, thanks anon

>>70523645
I meant my comment on accepting a perspective to enjoy music sounds a bit pretentious. That interview isn't pretentious.

(OPN has said some weird pretentious post-modern art type things in other interviews though, IMO. but that's irrelevant and I still love him)

>>70523235
>>70523418
Ok, not trying to sound pretentious/cultured but I'll say that this album actually tries (and IMO succeds) to be absolute music.

Absolute is not meant to signify best or supreme. It is opposed to programatic music that describes and mimics emotions and reality (objects, people, seasons). So absolute music tries to be it's own thing, pleasant by itself and not as narration or depiction. So, if I'm correct in this interpretation, figuring out it's structure would be the same as understanding it and the key to enjoing it.

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>>70523769
Yeah, I'd definitely agree with that.

Kind of like a Pollock painting. Art for art's sake; just aesthetic and nothing else.

>this thread

it's a good album and it makes my ears happy

>>70523769
>>70523921
did this turn into a cringe thread?

please never post again
please pick up a book on art

thanks

>>70524091
>bitches around
>gives no insigh
>thanks
Being a pseud sure is easy

>>70524116
>gives no insigh
sorry I'm not your art appreciation 101 professor
>Being a pseud sure is easy
according to the two posts I quoted, its as easy as skimming through one or two wikipedia pages and pretending like you understand something

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I don't really go on mu anymore because there's rarely actual music discussion here but this thread was interesting thanks

>>70524091
>read this objective instruction on how to interpret something that exists for the soul purpose of meaning something different to everybody
Go be an insufferable pseudo-intellect on reddit. People throw around that insult but you seriously just embodied all the worst of that website.

>>70524453
pseudowoudo

>>70523769
>>70523597
I'm OP, thank you for sharing these perspectives. Non-referrential music without at least any kind of conventional narrative is a fascinating idea. Have to keep listening to hear if OPN realizes that idea.

>>70526210
Wow this is actually a great thread that reminds me of old /mu/

/mu/ should be about sharing, discovering, and discussing music, and contextualizing how to enjoy different types of music for people that are missing what others see in particular types of music or particular albums

Also share and feel threads

Good job OP

>>70522769
Playstation 1